Thursday, November 27, 2008

Q Tips

10 comments:

Wow, I was over at the FAIR site and y'all's site was listed in their sidebar. Nice to know y'all are doing this watch stuff. Instantaneous bookmark! I try not to be cynical, but I swear I'm becoming more savvy about the slants and lack of depth in NPR's news reporting. Day-to-Day is one example of a dreadful programme. I wonder if they read this site? Do y'all ever write NPR about their programming? I did and got this form reply, which also stated that my email had been forwarded to the "office" of the NPR Ombudsman. - Jay

This morning I made the mistake of listening with a moment of hope when Inscreep began to look into this mysterious drop in the price of oil. The person he interviewed started out by talking about the world economic crisis, and I thought, yes, yes, are they going to go there? Are they actually going to talk about how Wall Street's former ability to leverage itself in the futures market in crazy ways is no longer the case because of the credit crunch? Pretty please? But no, she started going off on how demand is responsible. Even Inscreep raised the question of how ludicrous this was, compared to the magnitude of the drop. But no, we were reassured that that was the case, with no mention of how our investor class screwed up that market for itself just as it has with mortgages, engorging in its own rapacious greed.

Anon,You don't have to use RSS, but (at least on IE and Firefox) if you click on the RSS button you will get a plain, white, very readable version to read that tracks back about a month. I'm sorry about the black, but aesthetically, I'm kind of partial to it - especially with embedded images...

A couple of observations about Naturally Pathetic Radio's blasé approach to the crisis in Bombay (Mumbai), which continues as I write:

- Philip Reeves, one of NPR's few reliable, non-spin reporters (he's a BBC vet) has never seemed to be buddy-buddy material to the gang in DC, which is to his credit. Anyway, I heard MeeShill Norris make some inane comment to him (can't remember it exactly), but for the first time, I heard annoyance in Reeves' voice, as Norris had made some assumption that was not only preposterous, but not even true. This from the NPR anchor! (Damn! I wish I could remember what it was!) Anyway, the feeling I got was that 9/11 is beyond sacred, while terror in dirty old Bombay somehow didn't rate as high, or something.

- Our NPR hacks seem rather intimidated by the intelligent and well-spoken Indians who are reflecting on the Bombay crisis. Inskreep revealed today, yet again, how fundamentally stupid he is, even in superficial matters. He was interviewing the gracious and very famous (in India) author Shoba De about the Taj Hotel. His questions were as if some dumbo teenager was bumbling along disinterestedly, typically botching his access to someone of consequence. I was reminded of his vanity trip 'profiling' the city of Karachi.

PS: Most English speaking Bombayites refer to their city as 'Bombay' not 'Mumbai', regardless of officialness.

JayV: a suggestion: please scan this blog's archives - pretty much anywhere, to see more than ample evidence of the validity of the critiques that appear here. It won't take long to put together what Nationalist Propaganda Radio truly is.

Over the past few years I've complained a couple of times to Robin Young at 'here and now', and she actually answered back. Once she even agreed with my criticism. But, like Woody, all the others get the circular file treatment. When I do write them, which is less and less frequently, as I listen less and less, I always mention that Amy Goodman is on in the background.

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My name is Matthew Murrey and I'm from Florida, but have been living in the Midwest since 1984. I started this blog because no one else was blogging NPR's drift toward the right - and it made more sense than yelling at the radio.

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Regarding Q TIPS

"Q Tips" is an open thread post where you can place general comments or brief notes about NPR.

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I make every effort not to interfere with comments - BUT I will generally delete violent, gratuitously vulgar, or obscene posts. I realize it can be a subjective judgment call. Even when you're really angry, try to play nice.